Sunday, August 15, 2010

Mark Cuban Visits Durham

Mark Cuban paid a visit to Durham last Thursday. For the hi-tech set, it was like having Lady Gaga in town. The “dot com billionaire” was in the house!

He owns the NBA Dallas Mavericks, too…and a couple of weeks ago unsuccessfully attempted to purchase the Texas Rangers. So, we got to talk a little baseball with him as well. Yeah, he’s a rock star. (There is much debate about Cuban as an MLB owner, but somebody has to replace the Yankee's George Stienbrenner!?!)

Cuban was the featured speaker at a day-long event hosted by Local Tech Wire (a Capitol Broadcasting Co. enterprise.) Check out their coverage: the photo gallery and a good story on Cuban’s rules for business. He spoke at Bay 7 to a packed house on the American Tobacco campus.

Even though he is routinely introduced as a billionaire, Cuban is a thoroughly unpretentious guy.

Accordingly, one of his rules for a start-up company: live like a college student...cheaply.

And his advice to college grads is more of the same: live cheap, eschew credit cards, drive a clunker, endure multiple roommates…and try different jobs until you land upon something for which you have a passion.

That may not be what every parent envisions for their new graduate…but hey…he is a billionaire. It certainly worked for him!

Your Blogger...

I'm VP of the Sports Group at Capitol Broadcasting Co. My office is in the Durham Bulls Athletic Park - a great place to work. (And wonderfully distracting!)

CBC owns the Bulls, operates four sports-talk radio stations in Raleigh and wralSPORTSfan.com. Our radio brands are The Fan, Buzz Sports Radio, The Ticket and ESPN Deportes. We are a partner with Learfield Sports at Wolfpack Sports Properties, and our TV stations connect viewers with NBC, Fox and ACC sports. Our radio stations are the RDU flagships for NC State, Duke Univ, the NHL Carolina Hurricanes and the Bulls.

We even built a basketball court at our American Tobacco complex in Durham and a play area for grown-ups! There's a brewery in the ballpark, too. It's work. It's play. I can't always tell the difference!?!